


Home is Where the Hound Is

by Arazsya



Category: New Blood (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Mild Canine Peril
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7295200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Stefan working long hours on things that he <em>absolutely</em> cannot talk about, Rash finds himself feeling lonely. The perfect solution: a couple of cats. He has listed the pros and cons, worked out a new budget, found their nearest vet and decided that he's ready. But Stefan, unaware of Rash's plans, has his own, decidedly canine, ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home is Where the Hound Is

**Author's Note:**

> Set at an intermediate point after Rash and Stefan have moved in together, but assumes both little movement on the Leila/Stefan front and that everyone will still be alive after Case Three. Please, let everyone still be alive after Case Three.

Rash was beginning to regret moving away from home. It was in the same way that he regretted losing contact with old friends; shades of aching behind his sternum, only tightening when he tried to breathe them away. The independence that he’d relished in the first couple of months was wavering as loneliness started to set in, curling at the back of his brain like an insect dying a particularly slow and painful death.

He hadn’t noticed it back when Stefan had still been trying to forge his way through enough paperwork that he’d need waders to travel between desks, and came home as soon as he could. But now he had cases again, which, he had assured Rash multiple times, always with That Smile, the one that made at least seventy percent of the population trust him immediately (the other thirty percent were either not admitting it or just generally evil), lurking around the edges of his features, he absolutely could not tell him about. He was out until late, and gone again before Rash woke up. There’d be a scribbled note informing him that they were out of milk, with what Rash dearly hoped were ironic kisses, and nothing else until the next morning.

That left a building meant for two people which usually contained only one. It felt _empty_. As if Rash were intruding in a vast cathedral space, something which didn’t belong to anyone and was no one’s home. People were only ever visiting.

In the house he’d grown up in, someone had always been there. Mum or Leila or whichever of his aunts were round for tea. There had always been conversation, always the dull buzz of it through the walls. The place had never quite been silent. He hadn’t really known what silence was.

He knew it now. In the evenings, he could hear it past the television no matter how high he turned up the volume. In the mornings, behind the humming of the fridge. Sometimes, he was convinced that it followed him to work. Sat in the empty chairs in the office and stared at him. But he couldn’t go back home; there was no way back home. He visited, of course, but the house was different now. As if, behind the paint, someone had replaced all of the bricks in the walls with other, identical ones. He had left, and now he couldn’t quite recognise home, and it couldn’t recognise him.

Things were better when Stefan was there, yammering on at him, white noise. Better when Leila was there, if she managed to get away from her shifts. Better even when they both conspired – and he was half sure that they _were_ conspiring – to be there together. But mostly, they weren’t. Odds were, they wouldn’t be there when he got home. Their absences ached.

Rash shook his head, and tried to make his eyes focus on something other than the computer monitor that he had just switched off. _It’s just homesickness_ , he told himself. _It’ll pass. Give it a few months._

Hadn’t yet, though, had it? The days had passed, just as this one would, until the flat felt about as welcoming as the office. He couldn’t work up a single spark of enthusiasm for the idea of returning to it.

Still had to go, though. Or he’d start to get pointed comments about how he wasn’t going to get any overtime. From people who were going to hang around after he was gone and complain about him, most likely.

Rash gathered together his phone and his coat, and stood. He called out a less than cheery goodbye to his less than cheery colleagues, which they mostly ignored. DS Sands made a faint humming noise, but didn’t look up from his computer screen. Probably something other than work, or he wouldn’t have been too riveted to mutter something less than complimentary. Or maybe Rash was just less worthy of his attention than even the most mundane of tasks. It was difficult to tell. Sometimes it seemed like the man might be starting to soften towards him. Most of the time, it didn’t. Rash wasn’t sure that he cared.

On the way home, he found himself thinking again. About cats. He’d been talking around the subject with Leila, saying how it might be nice to have some company when Stefan was out, and in no way admitting that he was lonely, though she had probably worked that out. She’d suggested a pet, months ago. The idea had been stuck in his head ever since.

He had actually made a list, which had since been stuffed into the back of one of his drawers where Stefan was unlikely to find it. Pets which he might consider, and their pros and cons. Fish had been dismissed fairly quickly, because Stefan would probably decide to help out by putting medicine in the tank or overfeeding them or something and kill them all. Rabbits were outdoor pets. A parrot would learn bickering from Stefan and then he’d never have a moment’s peace.

He had settled, finally, on cats. Cats were clean and were happy doing their own thing and would probably treat Stefan with all the disdain he deserved. They were unlikely to be swayed by That Smile, or any of the other faces which he pulled to stop Rash from hating him. Had distinct personalities. Were a nice sort of company. Purred.

Cats were perfect, and a friend of one of Leila’s friends had a moggy that had just delivered a litter of tabby kittens. She’d sent him pictures of them, a video of the little things stumbling around as if, under the fur, they were entirely composed of varying sizes of sausage, all wobbly and unstable. They’d be ready to go to their homes soon, she said. If he wanted a couple, she could ask her friend to put in a good word for him, she said. And she waited.

After drawing up a truly heroic quantity of spreadsheets – probably more spreadsheets than he used to do his finances, but pets were something which he needed to be sure about – Rash had decided to tell her yes. Two cats, so they could keep each other company while he was out, were affordable. Stefan might not approve, but he probably wouldn’t even notice the cats until one of them left a furball in his shoe, he’d been out so much. And even if he did see them, it was better to get them now and apologise later.

He _might_ let Stefan name one. Maybe. If he stopped hiding the TV remote.

Rash was still thinking about cats when he arrived at the front door, musing over which cat furniture he should buy for them and whether Stefan would mind if they ate some cheaper brands of food for a while, to allow for feline-related expenses. Whether there’d be time to go and visit the kittens over the weekend.

There was light pooling out from the letterbox, and Rash paused, his hand faltering with the key halfway to the lock, his neck starting to prickle.

There was nothing to worry about, he told himself. Stefan was probably just home early, as unusual as that may be. He was just paranoid. Not entirely without reason, he supposed, considering the kidnapping and the shootouts and the explosions, but they were mostly, if not entirely, Stefan’s fault. There’d barely been any serious cases at work. There was no reason why someone would be waiting there to kill him.

Besides, he could hear Stefan’s voice through the door, and he leaned down to push the letterbox open slightly. It sounded fairly normal, even if he couldn’t make out the words. Not a shout, and definitely not his high-pitched please-don’t-kill-me voice. No one else was speaking. Maybe he was on the phone, or something. _Definitely_ nothing to worry about.

Rash unlocked the door, and Stefan’s voice cut out immediately. Which was fairly unusual, because if Stefan didn’t want Rash to know what he was talking about on the phone he tended to just switch to equally loud Polish. Maybe it was work, one of these things which Rash could not hear anything about, in English or otherwise.

He didn’t have to wonder for long. He pushed the door open, stepped inside and shut it behind him, looked over at Stefan, and saw the reason why. The reason _s_ why.

Stefan was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the rug, where the coffee table should have been, still wearing his awful mustard-coloured gilet as if he’d only just got in, though his shoes were off. He had odd socks, messy hair that somehow still managed to look artful, and he was surrounded by dogs.

Perhaps _surrounded_ wasn’t quite the right word. There were three of them. Two full-grown and one puppy. The puppy hadn’t noticed Rash. It was too busy chewing on Stefan’s fingers, one tiny white paw batting at his hand. Stefan himself had noticed, though, and he had turned his head to stare at Rash with the expression which usually developed into That Smile.

“Rash!” Stefan said, as if it were a complete and welcome surprise that Rash was here, in this flat, which they shared. One of the dogs started to wag its tail, thumping against the rug and stirring the dust up. And, there was That Smile. Damn him.

“Stefan,” Rash replied, and blinked hard, once, half-expecting to wake up. He didn’t. Neither did the dogs disappear. All that had changed was that the puppy had released Stefan, and swung its head around to gaze at Rash with the saddest liquid puppy eyes that he had ever seen. Saddest off Stefan, anyway. _They do say_ , reasoned the least baffled part of his brain, _that dogs look like their owners_. “There are dogs.”

“Yes,” Stefan agreed, and his face had an unreasonable brightness about it, considering that the dogs were not made of solid gold and about to solve all the financial problems that they would ever have.

“Why are there dogs?”

“They’re our dogs.”

“We don’t have dogs.”

”We do now.” Stefan beamed at him, and the other of the full-grown dogs, a fluffy yellow thing, waved its plumey tail, a banner in celebration of Forever Home and Someone’s Dog. “They’re rescue dogs. We rescued them.”

“We,” Rash began, and then had to stop. Swallowed, blinked again. Continued, his voice starting to rise. “We did not rescue dogs, Stefan. We _cannot_ have dogs! Take them back!”

“Rash, don’t shout,” Stefan told him, smoothing his hand over the puppy’s head, scandalised. As if he hadn’t known that this would be exactly how Rash would react. Which he definitely, definitely had. “You’ll upset them. You don’t want to upset our dogs, do you?”

“They’re not our – oh, _I’ll_ upset _them_ will I?” Rash hissed, but he found himself lowering his voice anyway. Oh, god, Stefan had probably noticed that too, and had concluded that Rash was going to lose. “Look we really cannot have – is that a Dangerous Dog? You know they’re illegal, don’t you?”

The dog in question stared at him through dark eyes, and it looked, Rash was certain, at least a bit like a pit bull. Its tail had stopped wagging. Underneath the short tan coat, it looked muscular. Like it could do some damage if it wanted to. There would be teeth in that mouth. Sharp ones. That didn’t let go.

“What?” Stefan echoed, and followed his eyes over to the thing. “Molly? No, never. She’s probably the least dangerous dog in London.” He reached over, fixing his eyes on Rash, with much the same expression as he had when they were racing, stubborn and challenging, and rubbed at the white dash on the dog’s forehead. It – Molly – closed her eyes, and her mouth flopped open, her tongue lolling out. “She’s a good girl.”

“That sort have jaws that lock,” Rash said, and Stefan shook his head, his hand shifting to scratch behind the dog’s ears, as he stared at Rash as if waiting for him to blink.

“That’s a myth,” he said. “And Molly’s a staffie. They’ve done tests and stuff, and they’re one of the breeds of dog most in tune with human emotions.”

_Probably so they can tell at what point it would be easiest to rip your throat out_ , Rash thought sourly.

“She’s got no history of violence, and she’s five now, they think,” Stefan went on. “Wasn’t in the happiest home before, so she’s a little nervous of things, but they said she was a great dog."

It took Rash a second to realise that _they_ referred to whichever shelter Stefan had managed to charm into providing him with three dogs. Rescue dogs. Not just bought off a breeder. And that meant forms, and checks, and...

“There’s a _three-step sodding process_ ,” he said. The yellow dog’s tail stopped wagging. “For adopting a dog.” Not just an impulse, then, as much as it would be like Stefan to go out and buy three dogs on a whim. This would have taken time. A _lot_ of time. “They would have had to do home visits. How long have you been working on this?”

“Not sure,” Stefan said, wrinkling his nose. “Not really been counting. A while, I suppose.”

“I can’t believe you bought three dogs without telling me,” Rash muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face, though he could believe it, because it was definitely the sort of thing that Stefan would do, and almost the exact same thing that he had been planning to do. Best not to mention that, though, for the sake of his argument. “Why did you do this? Why?”

Stefan shrugged, finally breaking eye contact with him. “The flat can get a bit lonely when you aren’t here,” he said.

Rash stared at him. “You’re the one who’s never here!” he protested, reaching the stage of arguing with Stefan which felt like spitting cherry stones. “You don’t even like dogs! One of them bit you, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Stefan said, as if having a creature dig its teeth into your arm was no big deal. Probably wasn’t what he had told Leila. “But they say that it’s important to desensitise yourself to them again if there’s an incident. I don’t want to develop a phobia.”

“No one thinks that desensitising yourself to dogs involves buying three of them,” Rash said, and sighed the sort of sigh which Stefan was solely responsible for. None of the dogs were wagging their tails now. None of them had decided that he was friendly enough to say hello to. The puppy was leaning into Stefan’s thigh. “Stefan, they have to go.”

All traces of That Smile dropped away from Stefan’s face, and then Rash was faced with puppy eyes from four different sources.

He didn’t stand a chance, really.

“How would we even look after them?” he asked, trying to make an argument, but he just sounded like he was wavering. Which he was. “We’re both out most of the day.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Stefan assured him, raising a placating hand. “I’ve spoken to Jan, he says he can look after them while we’re out, and he says he’ll teach them Polish.”

“Absolutely not,” Rash said, and Stefan huffed out something that was nearly a laugh. Probably only wasn’t because he wasn’t yet certain in his victory.

“You just don’t want our dogs to speak more languages than you,” he said.

“Why do you assume I only know the one–” Rash interrupted himself, and shook his head as firmly as he could manage. “No. It’ll confuse them.”

“They aren’t stupid,” Stefan announced, scooping the puppy into his arms. It stretched up and licked his face. “Kasia’s going to be a border collie when she grows up. They’re really smart. She’s going to need lots of intellectual stimulation.”

“I’m sorry, what’s her name?”

“Kasia,” Stefan said again, no more slowly or clearly than he had the first time. “It’s Polish. I named her.”

“ _You_ are _not_ naming _our_ dog something which _I_ can’t pronounce,” Rash protested, only for something of a smile to begin playing around the edges of Stefan’s face again. Clearly, all he’d done was make it clearer that he was Accepting the Dogs.

“That’s why I went with Kasia,” Stefan said, and this time he did slow down a little over the name. “It’s not difficult. And it’s too late to change it now. I’ve already sent off for her collar to be engraved, and I’ve been calling her by it all afternoon. I’d let you name one of the others, but they already have names.”

Rash sighed, heavily, and tried not to listen to what was most likely the sound of him both conceding the point and accepting that they had three dogs now. _At least it’s company_ , he thought. _Horrible, slobbery, demanding company with what looks like really soft ears no stop you are not going to let Stefan turn you into a Dog Person, you’ve already let him turn you into a Stefan Person and that’s bad enough_ –

“Who’s the last one, then?” Rash asked, in an attempt to prevent further thinking from occuring, and one of his aunts would probably have swatted him on the arm with a newspaper and told him he sounded like Eeyore.

“Jake,” Stefan said, depositing Kasia back onto the floor. She stayed where she was for a moment, and then wandered over to sniff at Rash’s shoelaces. “He’s a golden retriever. Crossed with something. They weren’t sure what. But mostly golden retriever. He’s a very calm dog. Only at the shelter because his owner had to move. Very responsible. They did have this great spaniel which _would not stop_ rushing about, but I didn’t think you’d go for that.”

“Oh, so, you did at one point consider what I’d want?” Rash muttered, and Stefan smiled at him with his stupid bloody face. “Are they at least house trained?”

“Jake and Molly are. Kasia’s still a puppy, so she might still need some work,” Stefan said, and Rash cast a glance down at Kasia as she tried and failed to get her tiny puppy jaws around his shoe. Wondered if perhaps he should step away. “But, overall, puppies are a positive thing. Women love puppies.”

“Not all of them,” Rash said, starting to edge towards the sofa, Kasia bounding after him. He was going to have to go past another of the dogs to get there. The yellow one. Jake. It knew. It was watching. Waiting.

Stefan’s face twitched into an expression which was trying a little too hard to be nonchalant. “How does Leila feel about puppies?” he prompted.

Rash stopped dead, and glared. “ _No_ ,” he growled, with all the force of the boiling irritation that hearing Stefan say his sister’s name crushed into his head.

Kasia abruptly stopped trying to make scuff marks on his shoes, slinking back towards Stefan, and Molly whined and flopped sideways. Great. Now the dogs were all going to hate him.

Stefan shrugged his free shoulder at Rash, and smirked. As he always did when Rash snapped at him over Leila.

“Look,” he said. “You’re a natural.”

Rash swallowed an inarticulate noise of exasperation, and skirted the long way around to the sofa. It didn’t work. The moment that he’d sat down, Jake just wandered over to him anyway, and stuck his head on Rash’s knee. Rash stroked him awkwardly, and his tail started wagging again, nearly impacting with Stefan’s head. Stefan hadn’t noticed. He was too busy making yelping noises at Kasia when she chewed at him, though it didn’t look like it could hurt that much. She was just a bundle of black, white and tan fur, after all.

His phone vibrated, and he dug it out of his pocket, managing to keep it away from the dog’s curious nose. Leila. Her friend wanted to know if he had an answer about the kittens. He grimaced, and craned around so he could get a picture of all three dogs without dislodging Jake.

_Stefan did something_ , he typed out, and then sent it with the picture.

Leila sent back a row of heart emojis, and a promise to be around to see them as soon as she could.

“She loves them, doesn’t she?” Stefan said, without turning, and Rash gritted his teeth, reached over to snatch a cushion from the other end of the sofa, and threw it at the back of his head. It connected with a light thud, and before Stefan had managed to let out an indignant yelp, Jake had trotted over to it, his tail waving, and picked it up. He carried it back to Rash, placed it carefully on his lap, and then sat in front of him expectantly.

Stefan nearly choked on his laughter, and, looking at Jake, sitting there with his ears pulled forward and his best doggy smile, Rash found himself thinking that this might not be so very bad, after all.

Not that he was ever going to admit that to Stefan.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise if Kasia is not an appropriate Polish dog name - I did a lot of googling, but not sure if it's more of a human name than a dog name. Like, some people have names which you could also give to dogs and some dogs have names that you could also give to people but there are also names which dogs have that people should not and other names which people have which dogs should not, and I'm very sorry if Kasia is one of the latter. This does also not accurately reflect the dog adoption process.
> 
> Ideas developed in conversation with the lovely [arrashsayyad](http://arrashsayyad.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who deserves all credit for "we rescued them".
> 
> The next chapter hopefully won't be too long, but in the meantime, thanks so much for reading. Hope you enjoyed it!


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